tinker00: Vurt, Pollen and Nymphomation were all based on real locations in Manchester - you could actually follow people's routes and recognise places (and try to catch you out...) Needle in the Groove uses the names of Manc bands as street names instead. What's the reason for this, have you deliberately distanced it from 'real' places? I thought it made your previous books more surreal and imaginative - you had all these incredible events against a background of Whalley Range and Rusholme and Alexandra Park. PS I'm halfway through Needle in the Groove, and enjoying it...

JF: In Needle I wanted to create a more explicit map of the city, a musical one. To be honest the idea started out as a satirical device against the corporatisation of Manchester, and how the businesses are keying into popular culture to sell their goods. And the book was written, however, it changed to a more poetic expression. On the CD of the book, especially, I think, it becomes a kind of prayer; a calling up of ghosts, if you like; musical ghosts.

tamara: Firstly, I was wondering what your view is of hallucinogenic drugs, and if you see yourself as a sort of Timothy Leary-type guru. And as far as Vurt is concerned, which I loved, why feathers?

JF: I have very little experience of drugs, beyond ciggies and alcohol. I have a very addictive personality, and a few years ago I found myself totally enslaved to alcohol. I had to take charge of my life. Haven't had a drink now in over three years. So, I guess I would have to say "No" to drugs. In my work, I use the imagery of drugs a lot, and I know people think this must mean I myself am taking them, but it's just not like that. Lots of my characters shoot people, for instance, and I don't! I use drugs as a metaphor for change, a way of forcing my characters into a new way of being.

Misshobart: Are you going to go back into the Vurt?

JF: My work is changing. I'm working away from a strict SF thing, entering a new phase, where my work is look at more "normal" life, whatever normal means in a Jeff Noon kind of way!!! My work will always have a weird element to it, I know that, but the way I approach that weirdness will change. At this precise moment in time, I can't imagine going back to a Vurt type thing, not specifically. Maybe I'll change my mind once I've got through whatever it is I'm trying to get through. Leaving Manchester also means that I'm moving away from all those earlier books. I don't know what will happen next. Currently I'm involved in a number of experimental projects, and that seems right for me now.

SimonreesX: What are your attitudes to remixing / sampling as applied to your work (& literature in general). How would you feel if another writer or even musician (now your voice is recorded) 'sampled' your work. From another angle, could your publisher get another writer to 're-mix' your work... maybe a 'radio edit', twenty pages long with all the difficult bits taken out :-)

JF: Yeah, I'm totally up for this, whatever people want to do. It's a question of opening the written word up to a broader audience, letting words escape the confines of a book. I have another book out in the Autumn, Cobralingus, which is an series of experimental texts, where I push the whole remix idea to the very edge, and reveal exactly the various techniques I've devised in order to remix words. I'm also working on a project with another writer, which will be a shared remix, sending texts back and forth between us.

Oliebrice: I was wondering whether you were listening to specific records when you wrote Needle in the groove, that inspired you, or whether you were just thinking of dub and stuff in general?

JF: I list a number of groups, musicians in the front pages of Needle; stuff I was listening to, and that I consider to have entered into a more liquified expression of music. It's not just about dub; I also mention Evan Parker and Derek Bailey, for instance, avant garde jazz musicians; and some experimental electronic people like Oval, Microstoria. There's a whole bunch of different types of music out there now, all becoming more and more liquid in its approach. I wanted Needle to reflect that change, and to participate in it.

MPotter: Where next for dub fiction? Do you think the style works best with music-related themes, or are you planning on exploring other areas?

JF: No, Dub Fiction can work on any subject matter. Cobralingus contains ten pieces, all remixes of other people's texts, and none of them about music.

Ktopping: Your writing has always been closely associated with Manchester. Why the move to Brighton, and how do you see it affecting the way you write and the things you write about?

JF: I moved to Brighton for many reasons, some of them purely personal. On a work level, I felt that I'd said more or less all I could say about Manchester. There's only so many stories any one writer can produce, about any one location. Also, I was aware that I needed to kickstart my muse! And moving seemed a good way to do that. Writing Needle whilst still in Manchester, was very much a farewell to the city. How will the move affect my writing? Well, immensely, I hope! I'm in a period of change, which is my favourite place to be. Now, I have to see what comes out of it. It's exciting!

Nathanmesser: Related to ktopping's question, how does Brighton compare with Manchester? Is it it's own cultural centre, or does it rely on London a lot?

JF: Brighton is totally different from Manchester, and from London. It's a unique place, very relaxed, chilled. And lots of artists, writers, film-makers etc live here. I love it. I feel like I'm part of a scene already, and I've only been here a few months. It's very easy to meet people here, very friendly. And nobody looks at you. You can be who you like, without hassle.

dan314: Needle in the Groove seems to flow, rather like a piece of music. As one who usually reads slowly, I found that with this book the opposite was true, perhaps due to its almost rhythmic style. I wonder how much this style is a result of your method of writing; for example did you write most of it over a short, intense period? Also what was your inspiration for, and was it hard to keep up, your style of punctuation?

JF: My first attempts at writing the book (based purely on the idea of the liquid music remix) produced much more obvious texts, written in an entirely normal style. I kept getting stuck, until I realised that I had to allow the remix to affect the prose, in a symbolic way. Getting rid of the fullstops, and introducing the slash effect, this allowed the music to flow into the words. Once I'd come up with this technique, the book more or less wrote itself, in a very easy manner.

Andyuk: I'm interested in this CD you mentioned - don't know if you've ever heard of "Trip City" by Trevor Miller, but it had a cassette soundtrack by A Guy Called Gerald. The idea was to listen to the tracks while you read, think he was also trying to write in a 4/4 pattern too... sounds like Cobralingus is taking this further - nice1!

JF: I remember Trip City; it was on sale when I was in bookselling. The difference with Needle is that the words and the music are very intimately linked together. And no way am I writing in a 4/4 pattern. I hate 4/4 beat music. The book is totally against that idea.

Misshobart: Didn't know there was a CD of the book - where can i get this?

JF: The CD of Needle in the Groove is available from Sulphur records (Scanner's label.) It contains 14 pieces from the books, spoken by myself, music by David Toop. It not in any way a Talking Book; more a kind of tangent to the novel. It gets right inside the main character's head, and David's music is what I find inside there!

Nathanmesser: Are we likely to see (i.e. do you have planned :) any public readings to music of Needle in the Groove in club chill-outs or at festivals? Might make a good serialisation over several days at a festival.

JF: Yeah, I'm doing a series of readings, some of them with David Toop on the decks. We did the first one the other night in Brighton, and it went really well, I think. Here's the advert: 17th May, Borders Charing Cross Rd, London (just me); 19th ICA, London (with Toop); 24th, Leeds Borders, (just me); 25th, Contact Theatre, Manchester, (with Toop.) This last one takes place after the performance of Vurt, the theatre remix. If people want to see this play, it's on from the 18th, until mid June. Re festivals, no plans as yet, depends on Mr Toop's whereabouts! Def doing the Edinburgh Book fest this August, with David.

Misshobart: Is this (Needle) the first time you've written in this way - with the words flowing like music.

JF: The idea of the remix fiction really started with the Disco Biscuits tour; that's when I first got the idea of doing a dub of a story. The remixes of Jabberwocky in Nymphomation were the first examples in my work. In Pixel Juice I extended the techniques a little, and that led to considering a whole novel based on the techniques. That's Needle. So, it's been building up all the way through my work. If you go back to Vurt: Totally feather up, living on the dubside. The idea is there already. And I think Scribble says at one point "If you can remix Madonna after she's dead, why can't they remix the night?" I guess I've been following that impulse all the way through to the present work, and on into Cobralingus.

racybrace: Do you think that you have successfully managed to wax lyrical in a fashion that truly befits the essence of music?

JF: I hope so. It's a very difficult thing to try, of course, and fraught with danger. I knew I just had to go for it, no holding back. Go mad with the prose. Some of it is very lyrical, and romantic, and I like this. A friend of mine described it as being like John Donne writing about dance culture, and that pleased me no end, even if it was a bit tongue-in-cheek.

Jatbrowne: I lost my enthusiasm for reading intelligently a while ago, and my books are gathering dust on the shelf (incl. Noon up to Pollen). At the moment, what with study and all, Tom Clancy is the deepest I get to go. Can you give us a few words that might rekindle the flame?

JF: Oh, I don't really know what to say. To me, books are like life, they're the blood; words are in the blood. Same with music. You've got to open yourself up some more, get in some input in your life. No input, no output; that's the rule.

Imogen: Will you still write about Manchester now that you've moved to Brighton? Was the move a conscious decision to escape being seen as a Manchester writer? And finally, what is it about Brighton that you like and how does it differ from up north?

JF: I've covered this topic a bit already today. It was a conscious decision, to a degree. I needed a change in my life. Also, I started to feel that I wasn't really breaking through in Manchester. I wanted to mean more than I did, if you see what I mean. I have some great, brilliant fans there, but the vast majority of people don't even know who I am. I found myself putting a lot of energy (spiritual and physical) into promoting the city as an interesting literary landscape, but I wasn't really getting much feedback. I find it very interesting that people keep asking me why I left the city. It doesn't really get asked of other artists, certainly not to the same degree. The reason is, I think, that I'm one of the few artists who has actually tackled the city as a subject matter in any serious, sustained way. A much more interesting question for me is to ask why this is; why are so few artists (in any medium, including pop music) using Manchester as a subject matter? The only other person apart from myself, that I can think of, is Morrissey, during the Smiths' period.

Racybrace: what section in book shops do you think that Needle in the Groove, and all future enterprises, will be filed? Do you foresee a new section of remixes appearing soon?

JF: I do feel the need to escape from the SF section of bookshops. For a while I didn't mind being there, but now I feel that it's actually keeping my work from my true audience. So Needle is an attempt to escape from there. Hopefully, the bookshops will understand, although I've already seen it in both general fiction, and SF. It's a long process, struggle. I want to reach people, in an interesting way. That's it. That's my mission.

Tamara: How do you feel about the cult of the DJ? What started, like so many musical movements, as a street/bedroom thing has now turned into DJs-as-rock stars, with all the attendant huge festivals/egos/money/sell-out issues. Is it a tyrannical reign they are imposing on us, force-feeding us the same sorry chart-bound music? Or do you think they are they still at the forefront of free expression and breaking new music?

JF: Yes, the cult of the DJ. I feel bit angry when I think about all the promise of dance music, and how a lot of it is now just cheesy chart fodder. For me, there are still lots of good things going, but they exist right on the very edges of dance culture, where the music fades into the avant-garde. I listen to a lot of records that seems to come from this liquid area. Oval and Microstoria, whom I mentioned earlier, are examples of this kind of expression. They're not really designed to dance to, but you can feel the traces of dance music in there. I have very little time for the DJ as cultural hero theory, but appreciate the massive change they're brought about, in music, and how it is listened to, and most importantly, how it is made. The whole thing about remix culture, which is the period we're all now living through, has come from that moment when the DJ started to come to prominence. For that reason, they should be celebrated. Just lay off the cheese, guys!

misshobart: What do you enjoy reading? And are you working on a new book? Also, it seems as if all your books are built on very detailed maps of Manc. Is this the starting point for you? Do you have this picture in your head before you then add the flavour, the characters? Do you know where they live first before building their own individual pictures up?

JF: Working on the remix project with the other guy, I mentioned. Cobralingus coming out in Autumn. I have an idea for a novel, a big novel; the next step. What am I reading? At this precise moment, a collection of Steven Jay Gould's essays on natural history. Very good. Lots of ideas in there. Re the maps: No, not really, the map comes quite late in the process. the characters find themselves in a certain space, and the map forms around them.

Misshobart: When's cobralingus out?

JF: Cobralingus is out in the Autumn; that's all I know up to now. It's coming from a small independent publisher called Codex Books who have a website at www.codexbooks.co.uk

Misshobart: If you're up for sharing texts with another writer, remixing words / music etc, what about pushing it one stage further and getting your audience involved at your readings? do you ever do that? (no i don't mean audience participation) - but doing something more freestyle that just goes wherever Toop's mixing takes it?

JF: Getting audiences involved in the remix. Hmm...interesting. I would have to think about it, I mean, consider the tecniques involved. To a certain degree I'm responding to David's music anyway, because he's always adding things to the mix, life, it throws all my cues out the window. I have to just go with the flow, somehow or other. But, it's a good idea, misshobart, and I shall def consider it for some future date.

Misshobart: Well thank-you. And I dare you!

JF: Gotta go now, write my latest tome! Many thanks for all the questions, and the interest in my work. Much appreciated. Best wishes Jeff